Thomas Harold Amer (29 September 1923 – 17 November 2019), known professionally as Nicholas Amer, was an English stage, film and television actor known for his performances in William Shakespeare's plays. Amer made his professional debut in 1948 playing the part of Ferdinand in The Tempest. In his long career, Amer played more than 27 different Shakespearean roles and toured to 31 different countries.
Amer was born in Tranmere, Birkenhead, Cheshire. He served for five years during World War II in the Royal Navy as a wireless operator aboard Motor Torpedo Boats, first in North Africa, then in the Allied invasion of Sicily, where he was wounded in action.
Following demobilisation in 1945, he studied at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art in London for two years, winning the Webber Cup in his final year. He adopted the stage name Nicholas Amer and joined the Liverpool Playhouse under John Fernald. Together with Harold Lang, in 1963 he formed Voyage Theatre as a vehicle for performing Shakespeare's plays overseas.
Amer's many roles included those of Romeo, Laertes (three times), Prince Hamlet, Ferdinand (three times), Andrew Aguecheek, Donalbain and, as he got older, Julius Caesar, Macbeth and Macduff. In the 1980s he toured the US playing King Duncan in an Old Vic production of Macbeth. His London stage appearances included A Man for All Seasons with Charlton Heston, Captain Brassbound's Conversion with Penelope Keith and The Wolf with Judi Dench and Leo McKern.
Amer's first film part was as a 'pot boy' in The Mudlark (1950) with Alec Guinness and Irene Dunne. Other film appearances included Chapuys in Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972), Al-risâlah (The Message) (1976) starring Anthony Quinn, Admiral Nelson in Nelson's Touch (1979), The Prince and the Pauper with Rex Harrison, Mallarmé in Gauguin the Savage (1980), Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract (1982) with Anthony Higgins and Janet Suzman, Chapuys again in A Man for All Seasons (1988), Ben Gunn in a re-make of Treasure Island (1990) with Charlton Heston, The Whipping Boy (1994), The Deep Blue Sea (2011) with Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston, The Awakening (2011) with Rebecca Hall, a short, Heroes Return (2012) for Camelot Group, playing the World War II veteran Private Jack Jennings, filmed on location in the Burmese jungle on the border with Thailand, and his final film appearances playing Oggie in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) and as Mr Abney in the film (short) adaptation of Lost Hearts released in 2018.
His many TV credits, starting in the early 1950s, included Hamlet (1961), The Avengers (1963), I, Claudius (1976), The Professionals (1979), If Tomorrow Comes (1986), Fortunes of War (1987), Jonathan Creek (1999), ChuckleVision (2004), Midsomer Murders (2005) and Borgia (2011).
He also wrote numerous ballet and opera reviews for The Stage under his own name and under the pseudonym 'Kenneth Smart' and appeared in numerous TV commercials.
Educated at the Ionic Street School in Rock Ferry on The Wirral and then at the Alpha Drive School (which later became Kirklands Secondary Modern School), he appeared in the latter's Christmas play Jim Davis, adapted by his English Master, in December 1936. His mother, in the audience that night, was never to see him perform again as she died a year later of tuberculosis. His father was hospitalised after a street accident the same year, forcing the 14-year-old Harold to leave school, get a job and take on some of the family responsibilities.
Next day he boarded a ship in Liverpool to join a convoy to Algiers. Following Erwin Rommel's defeat and the liberation of North Africa, Amer, now wireless operator aboard MTB 243, was sent to Malta. In July 1943 the Allied Forces invaded Sicily and Amer took part in the invasion and those of southern France and Greece. During operations in Sicily, he was badly wounded in action but recovered in a field hospital near Catania. When the war in Europe ended, his boat was seconded to UNRRA, the United Nation's Relief and Rehabilitation Authority. A few weeks later the War finally ended before he could be sent to the Far East to face the Japanese.
As a result of his award, John Fernald offered him a contract to join the Liverpool Playhouse repertory company, which Amer accepted. In September 1948 he became a professional actor and took the stage name Nicholas Amer. His success in the third play of that season, The Intruder, a translation of Asmodé by the French playwright Jean-Jacques Bernard, prompted Fernald to make him the Juvenile Lead of the company. In the final play of the season, Amer was cast as Ferdinand in The Tempest, his first Shakespearean role as a professional actor.
Amer was essentially a Character actor rather than a leading man. His first London play was Fernald's production of Pinero's The Schoolmistress at the Arts Theatre, with Joan Harben, Philip Stainton and the rising star of British films at the time, Nigel Patrick. When it finished, Fernald asked Amer to play a young American opposite June Flewett in Rain Before Seven at the Embassy Theatre in London. The stars of this new play by Diana Morgan were Ronald Ward, Marian Spencer, Joyce Heron and William Fox. However, following the first night, the Daily Express headline ran "Rain Before Seven, ...Strain Before Eight", and the play bombed.
When the play failed to transfer to a bigger theatre, Amer was suddenly out of work. He was forced to sign on twice a week at the Labour Exchange and to find cheaper 'digs' (lodgings) in which to stay. Eventually Basil Jefferies of Renee Stepham Ltd took him on and acted as his agent. During this time he also accepted small television roles. In between these, he accepted an invitation to play Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice opposite Canadian actress Barbara Chilcott as Jessica for a tour of the Welsh valleys, for little money and travelling by coach, with the actors having to set the stage themselves and take it down after each performance.
Again out of work following the end of the tour, Amer worked at various times as a Christmas postman, a waiter at a holiday camp on the Isle of Wight, and a shift work worker at Wall's ice cream factory. He accepted an offer from Guildford Rep for a contract to share the task of playing leading roles in a different play each week with Edward Woodward. The season included Henry V. Leading actor Laurence Payne joined the company to play the lead role and Amer played the Dauphin of France. At that time he was recommended to John Gielgud who was casting for his forthcoming season of three plays at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and Gielgud sent for him. Amer auditioned and was offered the role of Green in Gielgud's production of Richard II, which would star Paul Scofield alongside Eileen Herlie, Pamela Brown, Eric Porter, Noel Willman and Herbert Lomas. In the other production of that season, Venice Preserv'd by Thomas Otway, starring Gielgud opposite Eileen Herlie, and directed by Peter Brook, Amer played Ternon, one of the conspirators, and understudied to Eric Porter. Gielgud, who was Knight Bachelor in the new Queen's Coronation Honours List in 1953, announced that the Richard II production was being flown out to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as part of the Cecil Rhodes centenary. It was Amer's first overseas tour.
Following the tour, Amer travelled to the Channel Islands to perform in a comedy, Blue for a Boy. John Fernald directed him once again in London, playing Razumikhin, with Kenneth Griffith as Raskolnikov, in Crime and Punishment. The new young director Peter Hall asked him to play the bridegroom in Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding. Michael Benthall offered him a season at The Old Vic, but only small parts and were on offer, except for a stint at the 1954 Edinburgh Festival as Donalbain in Macbeth, with Paul Rogers and Ann Todd in the leading roles. In 1955, when Regent's Park Open Air Theatre offered him the chance to play Ferdinand in The Tempest, Amer persuaded Benthall to release him. He played Ferdinand for a second time, this time with Robert Eddison as Prospero and James Maxwell as Ariel, and with June Bailey as Miranda, and then on alternate nights playing Percinet opposite Hilda Schroder in Edmond Rostand The Romanticks ( Les Romanesques), with character actors Russell Thorndike and Robert Atkins as the two fathers. He also performed Shakespeare live on TV, including playing Sebastian in BBC Sunday Night Theatre's Twelfth Night (1957) with Dilys Hamlett as Viola in a production by Michael Elliott and Caspar Wrede. He showed his versatility by also appearing in the 1958 Musical theatre Keep Your Hair On at the Apollo Theatre in London, directed by John Cranko and with settings and costumes designed by Tony Armstrong-Jones (later 1st Earl of Snowdon) and Desmond Heeley.
Amer's next big break came in 1958 when Peter Haddon, director of the Wimbledon Theatre, chose him to play Prince Hamlet. All Hamlets then were middle-aged as it was thought essential to have the necessary experience. Amer was 35 years old, but looked ten years younger. The public found this young Hamlet easier to understand and reacted well. His new agent, Herbert de Leon, who wanted to get him away from Shakespeare for a while, sent him for an acting part in a musical called Chrysanthemum at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London. The choreographer, Alfred Rodrigues, had other ideas and cast him in a leading part as Pepe, the lead dancer, to play opposite and dance with the show's musical star, Patricia Kirkwood.
In 1960 following appearances in The Taming of the Shrew and The Apple Cart at the Oxford Playhouse, the director Frank Hauser invited him to be part of an overseas tour to India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (now Sri Lanka) with The Oxford Playhouse Company, playing Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night and directed by himself, and also to play Alex in T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party, directed by Harold Lang. This tour, and his meeting Harold Lang, would change his life and career profoundly.
Back in London and out of work again, Harold Lang asked Amer, along with fellow actor from the India tour, Greville Hallam, to join him teaching drama students at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. They spent almost a year writing a play together, based on their teaching of the techniques that an actor needs to bring Shakespeare's printed text to life, calling it Macbeth In Camera. At its first performance, at the Webber Douglas School, they invited representatives of the British Council to see it. In April 1963, the Council, who had liked the play, offered them a tour of South America. They called their company 'Voyage Theatre'.
The British Council next sent Voyage Theatre, described by senior executive Valerie West at the time as "four splendid ambassadors waving the flag for Britain," to India, Pakistan, Nepal, Iran (Tehran and Shiraz) and Egypt (Cairo and Alexandria) as part of their Shakespeare Anniversary celebrations. The Council had also persuaded the Australia Council for the Arts to squeeze Voyage Theatre into their line-up for the next Adelaide Festival. On 2 March 1964, Amer arrived with his three fellow actors in Australia. They opened a week later and were enthusiastically received, their performance of Macbeth in Camera also being filmed by ABC Television for later transmission. They then flew to New Zealand under the auspices of the New Zealand Drama Council and gave performances in both islands.
Back home in London, Harold Lang wrote a new piece for Amer, Hallam and himself, Man Speaking, an examination of English poetry. Amer would do the poems of John Donne, Hallam those of William Blake and Lang would do the poems of John Milton. Meanwhile Voyage Theatre played the City of London Festival and the King's Lynn Literature Festival, before flying off again to Australia, this time to play Sydney and Melbourne but also, at the Australian Arts Council's request, to tour extensively all over New South Wales and Victoria. In December 1964, they performed at the Hong Kong Arts Festival then returned to Kathmandu in Nepal (this time at the King's request), India (Bombay), Turkey (Ankara and Istanbul) and Egypt (Cairo), then back to London. In May 1965 they travelled to Switzerland (Basel, Lausanne, Geneva and Vevey) and then back to the UK for performances in Hemel Hempstead and the Cochrane Theatre in London. In December of that year they toured to Turkey (Istanbul and Ankara) with Man Speaking and also to Thailand (Bangkok) en route to yet another return visit to New Zealand and Australia.
Voyage Theatre prepared itself for its longest engagement yet: they would spend six months visiting Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand and then Sydney, Melbourne, Freemantle, Adelaide and the Perth International Arts Festival in Australia, with both pieces and including a third play A Sleep of Prisoners by Christopher Fry. In July 1966 the Filipino people impresario Ralph Zulueta took them over and billed them as 'The Intellectual Beatles', opening in Manila to a packed Independent Theatre where the famous pop group had just played. In August 1967 there was a tour to the Israel Festival in Caesarea and in October one to Brussels, Belgium for two performances of both plays. The following year in May 1968, Voyage Theatre travelled to the Berlin Festival, performed Epicœne, or The silent woman by Ben Jonson at the Oxford Playhouse in September and travelled to the Belfast Festival at Queen's in Northern Ireland in November. The following year brought a run of By-Play, a double bill of The Technicians and The Straight Man at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester. In 1970 Pieter Toerien, Rubin & Firth (South Africa) asked Amer to play opposite Ralph Michael in Anthony Shaffer's play Sleuth in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Amer accepted, and it ran for over a year.
In the 1970s, Amer continued his acting career in the UK, appearing in Molière's The Misanthrope at the Oxford Playhouse in 1973, as Solanio in The Merchant of Venice and the Head Waiter in Ferenc Molnár's The Wolf (Oxford, then London) in 1973/74. A Man For All Seasons (role of Eustace Chapuys followed in Manchester with James Maxwell in the lead role. Then he played Captain Scott of the Antarctic in The Captain, written and devised by John Carroll and Royce Ryton, in the Overground Theatre, Kingston upon Thames in 1976, followed by a tour of the UK with The Taming of the Shrew in 1977. He played Ross in Macbeth and also understudied Macbeth himself in a regional tour to Brighton and Cardiff. He played the title role of Julius Caesar at the Leeds Playhouse in 1979, did a three-month season at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1980/81 with appearances in The Revenger's Tragedy, amongst others, followed by performances of The Misanthrope at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.
Back in London he acted in Eugène Ionesco's technically challenging play The Lesson at the Bear & Staff pub theatre in Leicester Square in 1982, in George Bernard Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion with Penelope Keith at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in 1983, and played both Duke Frederick and Duke Senior in Shakespeare's As You Like It in Southampton the same year. Performances in When I Grow Too Old to Scream at the New End Theatre in Hampstead and A Little Bit on the Side (a Beryl Reid revue) followed on a short tour in and around London. In 1984 he played Burgess in Shaw's Candida in a Frank Hauser production for a tour of the United States which also had him playing King Duncan in Macbeth. He played the part of Otto alongside Mark Wynter in the musical Hans Andersen directed by Val May at Guildford Rep in 1986, followed by Shaw's Candida at the King's Head Theatre in Islington. He then appeared as Chaim Levi in Ron Elisha Two opposite Amanda Boxer at the Roundhouse Downstairs, Chalk Farm in 1987. A Man For All Seasons transferred from Chichester to London in 1988, with the film version being made the following year. Lloyd George Knew My Father followed at St Edmund's Hall, Southwold in 1990, followed by Robin Hood and Mad Marion and Herne the Hunter (musical) at the Canal Cafe Theatre, Kilburn Park in 1992, The Kingfisher in Southwold in 1993, Shaw's Getting Married in Chichester the same year, and Beast on the Moon by Richard Kalinoski, directed by Irina Brook at the Battersea Arts Centre in London in 1996. By the turn of the century, Amer was concentrating his professional acting talents on films and television.
The next year saw him back in France to play the French poet Mallarmé in Gauguin the Savage (1980). In 1982 he was in Peter Greenaway The Draughtsman's Contract (1982) with Anthony Higgins and Janet Suzman, and some years later he revisited the part of Chapuys, this time in A Man for All Seasons (1988) with Charlton Heston. Two years later, Heston asked him to play the role of Ben Gunn in a film remake of Treasure Island (1990) that he was planning, to be directed by his son Fraser. The role of Lord Chancellor in The Whipping Boy (1994) followed. He appeared as Mr Heinrichson in the short film Benjamin's Struggle in 2005, followed by the role of Mr Archibald in the short comedy film Waiting for Gorgo in 2009. Amer had a part written specially for him by film director Terence Davies and played the elderly, ailing Mr Elton in The Deep Blue Sea (2011), which starred Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston. The same year also saw Amer in The Awakening (2011) with Rebecca Hall. A year later in Heroes Return (2012), directed by John Hillcoat for Camelot Group, Amer played the Veteran hero Private Jack Jennings returning to visit the graves of his fallen comrades in the Burma jungle on the border with Thailand. His final appearances were as the grandfather in Segment "G is for Granddad" of the US anthology horror comedy film ABCs of Death 2 (2014) directed by Jim Hosking, as Oggie, a blind and elderly present-day resident of Cairnholm, in Tim Burton dark fantasy film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) and as Mr Abney in Max Van De Bank's film (short) adaptation of the M. R. James short story Lost Hearts released in 2018.
Then in 1976 Jack Pulman adapted I, Claudius for television from the novels of Robert Graves, and Amer had the part of Messalina lover Mnester specially written for him and played opposite Sheila White. In 1977 he acted in Spaghetti Two-Step, in 1979 in an episode of The Professionals, in 1982, Whoops Apocalypse, Pig in the Middle and Jemima Shore, and in 1984, The Tragedy of Coriolanus (playing the Aedile) for the BBC's celebration of Shakespeare. Following these he appeared in Tender Is the Night (1985), Crossroads (1985), Artists and Models (1986), playing the middle-aged Giacomo Casanova, and as a desk clerk in If Tomorrow Comes, filmed in Nice (1986), Paradise Postponed (1986), Love and Marriage (1986), The Charmer (1987), Bust (1987), Fortunes of War (1987) (shot in Yugoslavia with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson), Streets Apart (1988), Eldorado (soap opera set in Spain) (1993), the TV film Knights: El Cid, Soldier of Fortune (1997), an episode of Jonathan Creek (1999), Arrows of Desire (Channel 4 poetry programme) directed by Colin Still (2002), Grange Hill (2002), Story Teller (BBC children's TV) (2002), Silent Witness (2002), My Dad's the Prime Minister (2003), ChuckleVision (2004), Merseybeat (2004) and as Arthur Leggott in an episode ('Midsomer Rhapsody') of Midsomer Murders (2005). His final TV appearance was as Prospero Santacroce in Borgia in 2011, which was shot in Prague.
Amer had a long involvement with, and was Drama Adviser to, the Ernest George White Society & School of Sinus Tone where the late Arthur D. Hewlett helped him understand Ernest White's theory of controlling the voice from the sinuses.
Having suffered a fall at home in January 2017, Amer went to live at Denville Hall actors retirement home, where he spent the rest of his life, and died there peacefully in his sleep on November 17 2019 at the age of 96.
1950 | The Mudlark | Servant | Uncredited |
1972 | Henry VIII and His Six Wives | Chapuys | |
Disciple of Death | Melchisedech, the Cabalist | as Nick Amer | |
1976 | Al-risâlah | Suheil | as Nicolas Amer |
1977 | The Message | Suheil | as Nicolas Amer |
The Prince and the Pauper | Keeper of the Tower of London | ||
1978 | Caravans | Voice coach to Behrouz Vossoughi | |
The Nativity | Balthasar | ||
1979 | Lady Oscar | M. De Chantilly, the pistol duellist | |
The Bitch | Restaurant Maître D' | Uncredited | |
Nelson's Touch | Admiral Nelson | ||
1982 | The Draughtsman's Contract | Mr Parkes | as Nicolas Amer |
2005 | Benjamin's Struggle | Mr. Heinrichson | as Nicolas Amer |
2009 | Waiting for Gorgo | Mr Archibald | as Nicolas Amer |
2011 | The Deep Blue Sea | Mr. Elton | as Nicolas Amer |
2011 | The Awakening | Edgar Hirstwit | |
2012 | Heroes Return | Jack Jennings | |
2014 | ABCs of Death 2 | Granddad | Segment: "G is for Granddad" |
2016 | Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children | Oggie | |
2018 | Lost Hearts | Mr Abney | |
1957 | Emergency – Ward 10 | Naval officer brother of Dr Simon Forrester | First hospital 'Soap opera' |
Sing for Your Supper | Carlo Ponchi | First ever TV musical for British television | |
Sunday-Night Theatre | Sebastian | "Twelfth Night" (as Nicolas Amer) | |
Arrow in the Air | Cypriot spy | ||
1959 | The Red Grass | Children's science fiction series | |
1960 | The Roving Reasons | "The Catanian Catastrophe" | |
Armchair Mystery Theatre | Customer | "False Witness" | |
The Old Pull 'n Push | Signor Perelli | "The Race" "Confusion at Cloudburst" | |
1961 | The Avengers | Luis Alvarez | "Crescent Moon" |
The Return of the Old Pull 'n Push | Signor Perelli | Episode 1.1 | |
Hamlet | Rosencrantz | "The Dread Command: The Readiness Is All" "The Dread Command: The Play's the Thing" "The Dread Command: The Sovereign Power" | |
The Pursuers | Pinky | "The Hunt" (as Nicolas Amer) | |
1962 | Parbottle Speaking | Dr. Leighton | TV film |
1965 | For Whom the Bell Tolls | Corporal | "The Bridge" (as Nicolas Amer) |
1969 | The Root of All Evil? | Partner | "A Bit of a Holiday" |
1976 | I, Claudius | Mnester | "A God in Colchester" |
1977 | Spaghetti Two-Step | Arthur | TV film (as Nicolas Amer) |
1979 | The Professionals | Khadi | "A Hiding to Nothing" (as Nicolas Amer) |
1980 | Gauguin the Savage | Mallarmé | TV film |
1981, 1983 | Pig in the Middle | Second Waiter | "Ships That Pass in the Night, Stopping" (as Nicolas Amer) "The Native Hue of Resolution" (as Nicolas Amer) |
1982 | Whoops Apocalypse | French Agent | "Lucifer and the Lord" (as Nicolas Amer) |
1983 | Jemima Shore | Carlo | "The Damask Collection" |
1984 | The Tragedy of Coriolanus | Aedile | TV film (as Nicolas Amer) |
1985 | Tender Is the Night | Spanish Patient | as Nicolas Amer |
Crossroads | |||
1986 | Artists and Models | Casanova | "The Passing Show" (as Nicolas Amer) |
If Tomorrow Comes | Carlton Hotel desk clerk | Episode 1.3 (as Nicolas Amer) | |
Love and Marriage | "Let's Run Away to Africa" | ||
Paradise Postponed | Contessa's friend | "Living in the Past" (as Nicolas Amer) | |
1987 | Bust | Philippe | "Write Off" (as Nicolas Amer) |
Fortunes of War | Palu | "The Balkans: September 1939" "Romania: January 1940" "Romania: June 1940" | |
The Charmer | Hotel Receptionist | "Gorse, the Deceiver" (as Nicolas Amer) | |
1988 | A Man for All Seasons | Chapuys | TV film (as Nicolas Amer) |
Streets Apart | |||
1990 | Treasure Island | Ben Gunn | TV film (as Nicolas Amer) |
1993 | Eldorado | Soap opera | |
1994 | The Whipping Boy | Lord Chancellor | TV film (as Nicolas Amer) |
1997 | Knights: El Cid, Soldier of Fortune | TV film | |
1999 | Jonathan Creek | Bill | "Ghost's Forge" |
2002 | Arrows of Desire | Channel 4 poetry programme | |
Grange Hill | |||
Story Teller | BBC children's TV | ||
Silent Witness | Spokesman for the jury | ||
2003 | My Dad's the Prime Minister | Old Bloke 2 | "The Party" |
2004 | ChuckleVision | Mr. Naza | "Paul of the Ring" |
Merseybeat | |||
2005 | Midsomer Murders | Arthur Leggott | "Midsomer Rhapsody" |
Benjamin's Struggle | Mr. Heinrichson | as Nicolas Amer | |
2011 | Borgia | Prospero Santacroce | "The Bonds of Matrimony" (as Nicolas Amer) |
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